In Brief:

Misbah confident of Pakistan's chances

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Birmingham, June 14, 2013, DHNS:,

Jun 15 2013, 02:22am ist

updated: Jun 15 2013, 02:33am ist

It’s been a tough week for Misbah-ul-Haq. Pakistan’s exit from the Champions Trophy has attracted huge criticism and a defeat to India in their last league match here on Saturday can only add to his woes.

The under-fire right-hander spoke at length about his side’s problems during a press conference. Excerpts.

On his slow batting: I think the problem is when you lose early wickets, you really have to make up for that and in that you can't just play freely. That's the reason (I batted slowly). And once you're losing wickets at the top, and your lower order is just struggling, obviously pressure is also on players who are in form.

That might be the case with me, also. Sometimes, when wickets keep falling at regular intervals, it really stops you from playing your own game. Whenever there are partnerships, somebody is playing well with you, then you can really put your foot on the accelerator.

On India’s recent form: Of course they are a confident lot now but still, I think, if you can just get breakthroughs early in the innings, you can put pressure on them. When your in-form players get out, a team gets under pressure. So we have got bowlers that can really do that job for us. We hope we can do that.

On plans against India’s batting: I think these bowlers have already played against India, and we were there in India before for the series. They have bowled to most of the batsmen and bowled effectively. So I think it's in the back of their mind. They're confident about that and they are very much capable of just doing that. That will help us as a team, because lately we did well against India.

On changes in Indian team (performance-wise): I think they've made some of the changes (in players) and those changes are really working well for them. They won against Australia (in Tests) and that is a good confidence booster.

That's why they are really performing well here. They started well here in warm-up games and then they played two good games in the tournament proper. I think when your top order starts scoring runs, you always feel comfortable.

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